Wednesday, May 13, 2009

I know they have issued a fresh detention order and the instant I appear in court they will detain me under the Internal Security Act and send me to Kamunting. And it burns them up so much that I am so near yet so far away.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

On late Monday afternoon, the court ruled that Nizar is still the Menteri Besar of Perak. On early Tuesday morning, the Appeal Court allowed a stay of execution. This means Nizar was back as Menteri Besar for a mere couple of hours yesterday and then had to hand the state back to Zambry.

What was astonishing was the speed in which the Appeal Court sat to make its decision when there are still so many older cases pending -- sometimes up to ten years while the convicted persons awaiting the outcome of their appeal languish in jail without bail during all that time. And the beauty about this is, even if they lose their appeal, their jail sentence is shorter than the time they have thus far spent in prison under remand. Some have withdrawn their appeal just so that they can go home. It is better to plead guilty or not contest the verdict since the sentence is shorter than the time they would have to spend in prison under remand.

The second thing that has astonished most people; lawyers especially; is the one-man quorum that sat to hear Zambry’s application for a stay of execution. They would have expected a minimum quorum of three judges since this case is of great public interest. But only one man sat to hear Zambry’s application and it certainly does not give an impression that Nizar saw justice done yesterday in the Appeal Court.

That happened to me in the appeal that the government filed against my release from ISA detention in November last year. We asked for a quorum of seven judges. If we can’t get seven we would settle for five. But they refused both seven and five and agreed on only three. Why only three and whose decision was that? It was an administrative decision, meaning a court clerk somewhere decided that it should be three.

We were not told who the judges were until the morning of the hearing. And when we found out who they were we objected to one of them because I had crossed swords with him many times over the last ten years. So this judge was asked to leave the room while the other two sat to hear our objections. When it was pointed out that it is illegal and unconstitutional for only two judges to sit and that we would be appealing against this the judge said, “Do what you like.”

Then the two judges ruled that the third need not recuse and he was invited back to ‘take his rightful place on the bench’.

The court is just fucking around with me and I am expected to ‘respect the court’ and abide to its decisions without a peep or a squeak. Balls! I do not have to, and will not, take this crap. I attended the first day’s hearing, and after seeing how the court pushed us around and treated us like idiots, I refused to walk into that courtroom again for the rest of the hearings. You want to put me on trial, well and fine. I will face the court. But if you want to fuck around with me and treat me like I am one stupid country bumpkin then I do not need to take this crap.

Okay, let us now talk about my second brush with the court, the criminal defamation trial at the end of this month. When I was first charged and asked how I plead, I replied that I refuse to enter any plea. The court said it would take that as a ‘not guilty’ plea. I then raised my voice and told the judge that I did not plead ‘not guilty’. I had refused to enter any plea.

I was advised that, under the law, refusing to enter any plea would be interpreted as a ‘not guilty’ plea.

When they transferred my case to a higher court they again asked me how I plead and I again refused to enter any plea. And, again, they interpreted this as a ‘not guilty’ plea and, again, I raised my voice and said I did not enter a ‘not guilty’ plea.

Look, I did not plead ‘not guilty’. And I don’t care a damn how the court wishes to interpret that. No plea means ‘no plea’ as far as I am concerned and, at that point of time, they had a choice to pronounce me guilty and send me to jail -- which is what I wanted and I told my lawyers so. But my lawyers said that this would not happen because, since I did not enter any plea, then I shall be subjected to a trial.

That is stupid and, in spite of that being the law, a stupid law is still a stupid law. When I refused to enter a plea on both occasions I told the court my reason for doing so was because the charges are defective and mala fide. But the court ignored that. The prosecutor asked my lawyers in what way the charges are defective and mala fide but of course my lawyers would not tell him. If we did then they would amend the charges as they did in my sedition trial when they discovered they were losing their case against me.

When the police called me in for interrogation it was on the basis I had signed a false Statutory Declaration. In fact, the day after I signed it, the AG said that I am guilty of signing a false declaration. Two days later, the IGP also announced they would be taking action against me for signing a false declaration.

How did the AG know? How did the IGP know? I had signed a SD, which I then officially, through my lawyers and by way of letter, sent to the prosecutors in the Altantuya murder trial. This was a ‘for your eyes only’ document. This means, since it is a criminal investigation matter, the SD is classified information and automatically comes under the Official Secrets Act.

However, mysteriously, within 24 hours, my SD appeared on http://bigdogdotcom.wordpress.com/, a Blog run by Zakir, a man aligned to Mukhriz Mahathir. I know Zakir lives next door to a very senior Special Branch officer because he has mentioned this often enough so this is probably how he got a copy of my SD.

Why did the police leak my SD to an Umno Blogger? It was confidential and meant only for the prosecutors in the Altantuya murder trial. But almost immediately the AG plus IGP both told the whole world about it and announced publicly that I had signed a false SD and that they would be taking action against me. They had not even seen the SD yet when they made those announcements. Furthermore, no investigation was launched to determine whether my SD is in fact false or otherwise.

Yes, the decision to ‘take action’ was made way in advance of any investigation. They had put the cart before the horse. Now they had to go look for the horse since the cart had already been announced. After that they called me in for interrogation so that the AG and IGP would not look like the stupid idiots that they are for announcing something before it even happened.

Then they panicked. If they charge me for the crime of signing a false SD then they have to prove it. I need not prove anything. It is not my job to prove anything. Since they are the ones charging me then they have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that I did in fact sign a false SD. What if I manage to put on a good defence and prove that I had not signed a false SD but had in fact signed a truthful one? What if witnesses come forward to testify that what I signed was true?

That’s when they realised they had blundered. If they charge me for signing a false SD and can’t prove it, or I can in fact prove otherwise, then Najib and Rosmah are dead meat. So they changed their strategy and instead charged me for criminal defamation.

But they can’t charge me for criminal defamation. Firstly, Rosmah is not a government officer. Criminal defamation involves you defaming a government officer in the execution of his or her official duties. Rosmah is merely the wife of a politician. She is not a government officer.

The husband and wife army officers may be considered government officers but I ‘defamed’ them in what they did outside their official duties. I did not accuse them of committing a crime when they were discharging their official duties. I did so in their capacity as off-duty army officers on a frolic of their own, as the law would say. This means they were not doing things as government officers but were moonlighting.

The government is therefore not involved in what they did so I did not commit a crime of criminal defamation. Or are they saying that the husband and wife army officers were merely carrying out their official duties under orders from the top?

The government is playing games with me. From the first announcement by the AG, followed by the announcement by the IGP, followed by my interrogation for the crime of signing a false SD, then the eventual charge for a totally different crime altogether, and finally, the transfer of my case to a higher court for no apparent reason whatsoever, I can see that all the government wants to do is to screw me good and proper.

Well, why should I endorse what the government is trying to do? I already said I refuse to enter a plea. I refuse to entertain the government with a trial. If they want to charge me for the crime of signing a false SD, well and fine. Let us fight it out in court and they can try to prove I did in fact sign a false SD -- while I will try to prove otherwise. But in a charge such as criminal defamation, they need not prove the truth of the matter. They only need to prove that I signed the SD. If they can prove I signed it, which they can since I did sign it and never denied doing so, then they can send me to jail.

In short, whether what I signed is true or false does not matter. They need not go into the truth or falsity of my SD. All they need to do is focus on proving that I did sign it and that would be enough to send me to jail, even if what I signed was absolutely true.

And the same goes for my sedition charge. Initially, they made a police report against me because I was alleged to have lied. The police officer who made the police report against me is the same chap who investigated the Altantuya murder. And he knows I lied because, according to him, he investigated the murder and did not stumble across what I was alleged to have written.

In short, he investigated the murder so he knows. And he knows what I was alleged to have written is therefore not true. So, I lied.

Then, he discovered that, since he investigated the murder and therefore knows everything about the murder to the extent that he knows I lied, the court would require him to reveal the truth so that the truth can be compared to what I am alleged to have written to establish whether I had indeed lied or not.

That’s when he changed his story. He said he actually does not know that much because he did not personally investigate the murder. Some other people conducted the investigation and he was merely the coordinator. But earlier he said otherwise.

If he did not personally investigate the murder and does not really know that much about it, how did he then know that I lied? He did make the police report against me on the basis that I lied. He knows that I lied. But he does not know that much about the murder. Yet he knows that I lied because he did not stumble across what I wrote.

What total crap! And when YB Gobind Singh repeatedly asked him about certain facts of the investigation to compare these facts against what I was alleged to have written; to establish in what way I had lied; this police officer with the rank of Superintendent refused to answer the questions.

If he refuses to answer the questions how can we establish the truth and at the same time establish whether I lied? That was when the prosecution told the court that it does not matter whether what I was alleged to have written is true or false. The court only needs to focus on whether I had in fact written that article. And if it can be proven I had indeed written it then I can be sent to jail even if what I wrote was true.

But did not the police report say I had lied and was I not charged for the crime of sedition because I am alleged to have lied? Now it does not matter any longer if I lied or not? Even if I did not lie I am still guilty?

Aiyah, games, games, and even more games. They keep changing the rules and move the goalposts halfway through the game. And they are still doing this. And the Umno guys whack me and insist that I face the court and they call me a coward for refusing to ‘face the music’. I can face the music as what these Umno people insist I do. But what music are they playing? I need to know first before I am asked to face it.

What Umno can’t stand is when you refuse to play by their rules and instead make up your own rules, which they are then forced to follow. Our HINDRAF chap did this when he refused to sign the conditional release papers and insisted that he remain in Kamunting. They had to physically throw him out of Kamunting like they threw Siva out of the Perak State Assembly last week.

Yes, I am having more fun this way. I refuse to tunduk to them and it upsets them like crazy. They tried to screw me and I turn around and screw them instead. They gave me an ultimatum to issue a public apology to the Sultan of Perak or else the family is going to insert a full-page advertisement in the mainstream newspapers announcing that I have been disowned. Then I turn around and disown them instead by going into exile.

No, I am nobody’s patsy. And I will go to great lengths to defy them every step of the way. I know they have issued a fresh detention order and the instant I appear in court they will detain me under the Internal Security Act and send me to Kamunting. And it burns them up so much that I am so near yet so far away.